On Friday, Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku reacted nervously to Facebook after some banks announced they would raise fees for cash transactions. “The debate about cash does not fuel the greed of banks! It is inadmissible to artificially increase bank commissions!” said Cholaku, who convened a meeting in the Government.

The Prime Minister’s reaction came after several banks had already informed customers that they were going to increase fees for cash withdrawals or cash deposits, interbank and intrabank payments (made at the counters). “We would like to inform you that as of January 1, 2024, commissions for cash deposit operations at cash registers and other operations will change,” one of the banks said in a message.

The measure resulted from the entry into force of the law to limit cash in the economy, a controversial decision taken by the Cholaku government.

The measure will affect owners of small shops in rural areas, where payment is mainly made in cash, and traders are obliged to deposit money in the bank in the evening. They will now pay more to have the bank deposit money into their account, which will affect their costs.

• “Consider that there are more than 60,000 small traders, many of whom have shops in rural areas where they pay exclusively in cash. Customers come in and pay in cash, some walk down the mountain to stock up. In the evening, the owner went for cash and drove to replenish supplies, and now he lowered our ceiling. So where and how can I put money on the card at that time to pay for my goods with a card?”, explains the founder of Paco Supermarkets and vice-president of the National Association of Small and Medium Businesses, Feliciu Paraskiv, in a discussion with HotNews. Traders the size of Romania – ANCMMR.

The current government wants to cap cash payments to stamp out tax evasion that has spiraled out of control, governors say. People don’t like it, merchants are also very unhappy.

Complaints aside, we looked at the numbers to show that PSD intentions are coming at the worst possible time. The number of ATMs per hundred thousand adults is decreasing, the number of bank branches is decreasing, and the PSD measure masks the failure to reduce tax evasion.

What is the report of the Competition Council

• In the urban environment, one unit served approximately 4,200 customers in 2015 and currently serves 4,700 customers. The changes are much more dramatic in rural areas, where a single unit served approximately 6,100 customers in 2015 and now serves 9,000.

• In rural areas, the closure of branches and the significant increase in the number of customers that the branch has to serve make access to the banking system difficult.

• The different propensity to use new technologies in the residential environment also arises due to the different degree of availability of self-service units of the territorial network. In 2020, 79% of premises in cities were equipped with self-service points, while only 8% in rural areas.

Romanians love cash

The money stored in the mattress has risen to a record level in Romania: more than 65 billion lei at the end of this summer. Growth since the spring has been relatively strong: over 5% from the first to the second quarter.

For comparison, this amount exceeds the market capitalization of Renault, Volvo or Carrefour. Even denominated in euros, the value of liquidity outside the banking system increased 5 times: from 3 billion euros to more than 15 billion euros this summer.